Give us your kind of your background on how you got involved in this whole radio thing.
I went to college at, I did two years at SUNY Adirondack, which is a community college in
Queensbury, New York, just a little bit south of Lake George.
And I took an intro to mass media class and kind of was like, well, this is what I want
to do.
This is great.
I like communication.
So I took a couple of classes and then I transferred for my last two years to the College of St.
Rose in Albany and they have a really good communications program.
My concentration was in public relations and advertising, but I really took an interest
to the journalism and audio end of things.
So I actually applied for an unpaid internship at I Heart Media when it was my second to
last semester of college and it was great.
I learned everything.
Every department I was able to go along on sales calls, but also tag along in the newsroom.
And my first big break, as I like to jokingly call it, we had a stampede of buffalo come,
they escaped from a farm and I have no idea why or how, but they just started running
and I don't even know how far they traveled, but they ended up going right past my apartment
complex.
So I called the station and they were able to get me live on air to do just live about
the buffalo stampeding my apartment complex.
That kind of solidified me in the newsroom.
And then I did just some part-time weekend stuff doing out of market because we're a
news hub in Albany and so we do news for a lot of the East Coast markets.
So I was in total after the unpaid internship, I became a paid intern where I did promotional
events and news and then I think I left after about a year.
So in total I was there for a year and a half and then I took a about two year hiatus in
the sales industry as a sales assistant at a newspaper, found out that was not what I
wanted to do with my life and took a leap and left my full-time with benefits sales
assistant job to take a position as a reporter in the newsroom at iHeartRadio and I've been
here for, I've been back for I guess nine months, nine months now.
Gotcha.
I'm loving it.
Well I mean WGY is no easy station to get a job at.
What's it like working at a legendary station like GY?
It's an honor.
It really is.
I mean the people, the caliber of people that I work with are just top-notch.
Our news director is outstanding and has really been so supportive in this project of mine
that I've basically just beat down his door with and he's, it's been great and I mean
I know it's really hard to find a job where you love what you're doing and you love the
people you work with but truly and I'm not just saying this, I love the people I work
with.
It's a great group of people and they are so hardworking and take pride in what they
do.
I'm just, I feel honored to be able to be a part of it.
So how did this whole idea for this podcast come about?
Well I'm obsessed with True Crime and I'm not ashamed to admit it.
I've been following True Crime podcast for a while now and of course all the documentaries
on Netflix and Hulu, I'm the daughter of a retired state trooper so I'm well acquainted
to the world of crime and I guess it's in my DNA I guess.
And I, iHeartRadio has really been taking an interest in podcasts and we had a VP come
speak at our quarterly meeting and he was talking about podcasts and I had always wanted
to do a True Crime podcast but I had no idea how to get started with it.
I'd never done anything like it before so I was really, I was hesitant to bring it up
and then I started talking with my coworker one Friday about my interest in True Crime
and the newest season of making a murderer and how it's just so fascinating and I would
love to do something like that.
So she said, you know, why don't you think about, why don't you do a podcast for iHeart?
Do a True Crime podcast.
She's like, I don't be with that.
I was like, oh my goodness, we should co-host and she goes, I'll be your executive producer.
That's Diane Donato who is a veteran reporter, has been there for a while and she was like,
you know, you be the talent, you do the hosting but I will support you 100%.
So then we kind of started talking about what we wanted to do and she had the wonderful
idea of talking about cold cases because as you know, podcasting, you really have to have
a niche.
It can't be broad.
It works better if there's a niche and so she was like, well, what about cold cases?
And so I looked and you know, we have a good amount of cold cases in upstate New York and
that's what I really wanted to bring the attention to upstate because we are so much more than
New York City.
New York City is great but there's more to the state than just the city and then I kind
of, the name just upstate unsolved kind of popped into my head and she was like, well,
that's a great name.
Jeff, our news director happened to be walking by and we pitched it to him and he's like,
yeah, that sounds great and then we just kind of were talking throughout the day as we were
doing newscast and the name Suzanne Lyle was thrown around because her family has been
active in fighting for missing persons and their families.
So that's the name that we know very well up here and they're not, they're very local.
So we brought up that name.
Then the next, so that happened on a Friday and then the following Monday we received
a press release from the Cold Case Analysis Center at the College of St. Rose which happens
to be my alma mater and they're unveiling this new program which allows forensic students
and criminal justice students to actively investigate real cold cases and it's one
of only six in the country, the only one in the state and so they were announcing this
press conference about this new program and the first case they were looking at is Suzanne
Lyle.
So I went to the press conference, I gathered audio which you'll hear in the first episode
and then I met separately with Mary Lyle who is Suzanne Lyle's mother and a week later
we were four hours deep into a conversation and I spent a total of that first day like
six hours with her and realized the scope of Suzy's case, there's just all of this,
all of these questions that just don't have answers because a lot of the people close
to her aren't talking.
So this in my head of St. Unsolved is just going to be one episode, so one case per episode
but then it just was morphing into oh my goodness, there's so much material here, this is going
to be a couple episodes and then I met with the professor who is the director of the Cold
Case Analysis Center and she and their marketing department proposed a partnership between
us and the Cold Case Analysis Center so we're investigating this hand in hand and then I
put it all together to go out there and hopefully someone listening to it will know something
and call into the Cold Case Analysis Center tip line.
When you are doing a true crime podcast or even true crime research or cold case research,
how helpful are the authorities?
So it's tricky, we have met with the state police but they can't tell us anything because
it's an open case, they know it's happening but they can't tell us anything because then
we become agents of the police and that becomes a hairy situation when it comes to hopefully
eventual court proceedings so they can't point us in any direction, they can't tell us who
or who not to talk to, they want us to be safe but they can't give us any information
because we become agents of the police.
So you're not getting any documents or files from them to help you with your research?
We can get what's public but a lot of our research has come from the Lyles, Mary Lyles
herself.
Take us through the process of how difficult it is to put all the storytelling together
and all the writing together, how time consuming it is on a project like this.
Yeah, you know that's been asked of me recently, I wish I had kept track of all the time this
has taken because it's a huge undertaking, I mean the interview aside which we've interviewed
probably a dozen or more people and all of those run at least an hour, we had one interview
that ran three hours and that's not even counting the total of seven hour interview
that I had with Mary over two days.
So not counting that, it takes a really long time.
I know the first episode because I had to set the tone for the season, that was about
30 minutes and I think that took like 30 hours to make that first episode just because I
had to kind of, I had a basic knowledge of Adobe Audition but I really had to teach myself
a lot along the way and my news director and the executive producer Diane Donato had been
great in teaching me tips but I really had, I'm a hands on learner so a lot of it was
that too but it's also the, like you said, the storytelling aspect and the writing aspect
of it because I have to write scripts for all of it and that takes a while.
So you're editing yourself, you're going into Audition and you're editing yourself?
Yeah, yeah I do that all.
Do you get paid by the project or are you still working and this is kind of on the side
because it just seems like you can't really generate a ton of income at least until the
project is done and then you still have to make a living.
Yeah, I'm hourly because this isn't all I'm doing.
I also fill in for the newsroom and I also still do promotions for the station.
So this is basically your side project?
Kind of, yeah.
So how many episodes with this first case do you have?
So it's going to be at least 10, there might be 11 but it will at least be 10.
And they come out once a week?
Once a week.
And are you worried ever that, oh my god, I have one due three weeks from now and I
have so much crap to go through?
Nope.
Okay.
Do you have another case that you have lined up for the future?
We have a couple.
Cool.
So how long ago did you start the first case so that you were ready to launch last week?
So from the time that I went to the press conference to the time it premiered it was
exactly four months.
Four months.
Four months worth of work and all the research and all that.
Yes.
And like I said, I mean, I probably have not said this enough, the Cold Case Analysis Center,
being a partner with them has been so, so spectacular because they had a lot of this
research gathered.
And so they brought me in and just kind of made me an honorary member of the Cold Case
Analysis Center.
And I've been able to just go over all these documents and immerse myself into Suzy's world.
But I think I started the actual episode around Christmas time.
Wow.
Have you been able to formulate an opinion on what you think happened?
Yes and no.
I say yes in that I think that there's multiple possibilities.
I have been asked that multiple times and to remain with my journalistic integrity.
I don't think I will ever say publicly who I might be leaning towards because honestly
there are so many unanswered questions and possibilities that I'm not 100% certain on
who this could be because there are people close to her that aren't talking.
And yes, that one might say that makes them seem guilty, but they could have also been
involved in things that maybe they don't want to get in trouble for that have nothing to
do with Suzy's disappearance.
Gotcha.
So what kind of feedback have you gotten?
Have you gotten any feedback from listeners?
I'm actually in a local true crime group and I was able to share on that.
And actually before it even came out, someone else shared it on the page and was like, oh
this looks interesting.
And all these people were commenting on it.
So excited for it to come out because there was a trailer.
And then I kind of and then someone tagged me in the post and was like, wait a second,
that byline looks familiar.
She's part of this group.
And so it's been really cool.
And they've I mean, I haven't heard a bad review yet.
I'm sure there's some, but no one has said anything bad to me.
Everyone has said that they're hooked and they're ready for episode two and they're
ready for more.
Now when what day of the week does it come out?
It's going to come out on Thursdays.
So the first episode was different because we premiered it on the 21st anniversary of
her disappearance.
But every other episode will come out on Thursdays.
What is your opinion on this whole podcasting thing?
I love it.
I think it's such a great medium, especially for the true crime genre, because I don't
think that there's been, I think this is the first time that stories like this can be told
because there's no time limit.
There's no constraints.
It's completely open ended and it can be as long as it needs to be, and it can be as short
as it needs to be.
So it's truly just about telling this story.
And I think that goes for anything.
It doesn't just have to be true crime.
The open endedness of it, I think is really, really, really good.
And I think it's important.
So what are your favorite true crime podcasts?
Your top three.
Okay, I'm going to number one, don't laugh.
It's called My Favorite Murder.
It's a true crime podcast.
It's technically under the category of comedy.
It's two women out in Los Angeles who are hysterical and they don't make fun of crime
or murder victims.
They talk about the stories and just kind of riff back and forth, but they're really
open about their mental health.
And it's a really, it has garnered just in massive following of people.
So they travel all over the world to sold out shows where these two women from LA just
read murder stories back and forth to each other.
It's a very interesting podcast.
I definitely urge you to look into it.
It's interesting.
So that's number one.
The second one would be Someone Knows Something, which is a CBC true crime podcast.
And that I think is really, really well done.
And they were kind of my inspiration for this because just the way he tells the stories
are just so real and so gripping.
And so actually someone compared our podcast to his and that to me was a huge compliment
because I think that he's wonderful.
And then the third would be Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard because he's great.
Well awesome.
Well Phoebe, thanks so much for your time.
The podcast sounds great.
I love it.
I look forward to listening to the future episodes and good luck to you.
Appreciate your time.
Thank you so much.
Tell everyone at WGY we said hello.
Okay, I will.
All right.
Goodbye.